Australian Elite School Scots College Accused Of Recruiting Violation

Sydney's most prestigious schools association, the GPS, "is in turmoil with Scots College boycotted from sporting contests amid claims from rival schools that it offered prohibited inducements to recruit young athletes," according to Proszenko & Munro of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.
Concerns "have also been raised" about the exclusive Bellevue Hill school's sports science program, which "is being run by a protege of controversial sports scientist Stephen Dank." Five of Sydney's top private schools -- believed to be The King's School, Sydney Church of England Grammar School, St. Joseph's College, Sydney Grammar School and St. Ignatius' College, Riverview -- "have refused to play Scots' first- and second-grade basketball teams." The schools "accuse Scots of offering sports scholarships to its players in breach of the Great Public Schools code of practice, which prohibits such inducements 'whether direct, disguised, or at arm's length'" (SMH, 9/24). In Brisbane, Peter Munro reported Scots' Headmaster Ian Lambert "boasted about the school's recent premiership success and its improved win-loss ratio across all age groups, teams and sports." A parent of a former senior student at Scots, who declined to be named, said that "the school's sports program went further still." The parent said, ''Dr. Ian Lambert decided they should win a basketball premiership, so they went out and basically bought an entire team with scholarships and dumped the team that should have been in the firsts." It is "a charge Lambert denies." But The King's School Headmaster Tim Hawkes admitted that most schools, including his, ''have offered inducements to a few good sportsmen." Hawkes suggested that "sporting scholarships should be tolerated as readily as academic scholarships, particularly as sport is a professional career for some." The use of sports supplements by schoolboys "is also a concern." Scots College "had accepted a rugby tournament scholarship from a sports nutrition company, which sells products promising 'explosive gains in muscle size and strength'" (BRISBANE TIMES, 9/24).